The Good, the bad and the UGLY!!!

Hello again.

I guess our noble goal of blogging everyday or two was just a pipe dream. Turns out life catches up with you no matter what part of paradise you live in. I will endeavour to catch up with all that has happened to the Boisjoli Clan since our lst update.

The Good.

In-law arrival, We had the whole clan here for a family holiday. Ruth and Earl showed up for a few days alone, and then the cousins showed up. We had a few real nice relaxing quite days showing R&E around the town, and taking in some of the local flavor, and then when everyone arrived, we had an incredibly action packed week of non-stop activity. Group trips included a short (13km) hike through the Alpujarra range in a torrential downpour. According to our map, it was supposed to be 8km, but apparently we read the map wrong. Not withstanding the distance, the hike was amazing, following an old spice trail through the mountains, with serious elevation drop, gain, drop and gain. We hiked past old roman ruins, ancient structures, a fruit grove, and through a couple real quaint little towns. It did start raining about halfway through the hike, and I had fears of a few implosions, but everyone was a real trooper, and even though it was the coldest day we've had here, no one complained much....except that there was no hot chocolate at the end!!!!

Following the hike, we headed out to trek the Caminito Del Rey trail. If you haven't heard of it, I would suggest googling it. At one point it was considered the most dangerous hike in all of Europe. Fortunately, the trail was revamped into a leisurely stroll. For all those who are coming to visit us, read up on it, as we think it's one of the definite must do's here.

After 2 days of hiking, everyone decided a day off at the beach was called for, so we ordered up the tropical Spanish sunshine, and spent a day relaxing, paddling, swimming, kayaking down on the beach. It might have even been 2 days. Sunburns were had by all, but that was the whole point!!! During the paddle, we saw a whole line of jelly fish floating in the water.  There must have been a couple hundred of them, and they had the most amazing colors.  We didn't risk swimming with them, as we didn't know if they were the stinging ones or not.  We did get some great pictures though! And speaking of pictures, at the end of the day, the kids decided to hit the water for a quick cool down, and stumbled onto a big octopus.  Not a giant pacific one, but a good sized one for this area.  It was amazong, because it stayed around and played instead of hiding like they normally do.  

Another day, we drove into Granada, and toured through the Alhambra. Again, Google this one, as it's another must see. 3 hours strolling the grounds, following the footsteps of the ancient Sultans, Caliphs, Kings, and conquerors was amazing.

Throw in a trip to the Caves of Nerja and it was a action packed week.

The Bad.

While everyone was here, we had a major rainstorm, which knocked out the power to the entire community. We didn't think much of it, as we had planned to leave for the day, and figured it would be repaired by the time we got back. Arriving back the the house after dark, we were glad to see the street lights on, but found out when we got in the house, the power was still out. The rain was so heavy, it fried the power meter at the street, and we were left in the dark. Close to 3 days, without power, and 10 people makes for some cozy living. Also, we had just bought a fridge full of food, so scratch those meals.

2 Days before the power outage, we woke up to a water issue...specifically, no water in the house. Fortunately, it was just a temporary issues, as crews were working on the hydrants, and shut the water down....only they went away for siesta time and didn't turn the water back on while the were away. Who really needs water for about 5 hours? Answer pools, automatic pumps and filter system, and other irrigation fields. The house above us must have had there pool system timer set to run during the water outage, as we heard their pump start, wind up, get real loud, and then go into alarm....followed by no more pump noises for a couple days. When we did get the water back, it ran brown from the taps for a couple hours, and had varying pressure, so it would spit and surge when the taps were opened. Made for interesting showers and flushes!!

Since we have Internet today, I will post this portion of the blog, and work on the ugly section offline.

Hello there, I know I haven't blogged in a while and some of you are getting kind of annoyed {sorry grampa Brian} but i am going to make it up to you. My cousins got here two weeks ago so they will be talked about a lot. When they got here we stayed up until 2:00 AM in the pool; it was so fun. Sadly we still have school, so we only get a little time to play, plus home work which we get every day. But we do do a lot of fun stuff {no pun intended}. We went to the Caves of Nerja which was pretty cool there were stalagmites every where, I wish you could have seen it. We got these cool phones to hear where we were and to learn about history. We went to La Festival Del Mar (festival of the sea) it was so much fun; I learned how to scuba dive and we did a kool treasure hunt. We also went to Alhambra castle and learned some more history; we went thru old soldier living quarters and in over 3 palaces. Soon after that we went on a cool hike called Camionito Del Ray, we found some cool snails on the hike as well as a snake. There was a scary bridge as well that three people died at.We went on a six hour hike  in the rain as well, we found a bunch of cool abandoned houses and nice rocks. Yesterday I went on a field trip at school, we saw so many dolphins and garbage then we went back.
.All in all life in Spain is pretty cool. your friend BRAE    

The catch up

Hey guys I'm so sorry that I haven't blogged lately, but I've been SO swamped with homework that there really hasn't been much time to do anything else. 
Now I'm sure you've heard everything we've done from everyone else but bear with me for this.

So since the last time I blogged we've done tons of stuff.  We went camping last weekend in Granada and we climbed on the first day and we did some some pretty challenging climbs, and then there was the ELEPHANT!!!
The second day we went hiking in the mountains to look for a cave that was on a sign. I'll tell you this much, when we started out I thought that it was going to be just this relaxed calm hike, and ya it was not. It starts out flat until your out a ways and then it goes up. When we get up this virtual mountain we stop and take a break and I thought we would head down because after all it had been a good hike.  Oh was I wrong. From that point we were only about 5\8 of the way up and my mom saw a cave up a cliff.(no joke, a cliff) and thought that that was the cave we were looking for so we hike up the cliff and realized it was just a cave of goat dung. So once we were done slopping through goat poop and dung beetles, we climbed down the cliff.  I started to believe that it might finally be over, but oh no, my mom is determined to find the cave that we actually came to see and all I have to say is that I think that I preferred the cave of dung to it because well it was lame.

After our big camping ordeal all I have to say for that week is that I had a lot of homework and that my grandparents are staying for a week and that I got my hair cut.

Oh yes and today and yesterday there was this big big festival going on called" Festival del Mar" that was all about how you need to be kind to the oceans and take care of it and it's creatures.
I'll put in a pic or two below if I can.

Anyway, stay reading,
Jaedyn.

(P.s. my cousins are coming tonight and that's why I'm writing this at 10:30pm, Bye)

Our first mountain expedition

One of the reasons we chose the area we are living, is the proximity to the Sierra Nevada mountains. As much as we love the ocean, we also love spending time in the mountains. We finally felt settled in enough here to go camping for the weekend. We were told that the mountains get very cold, so I packed all of our warm clothes. It turns out that cold for Canadians is a completely different concept...we did need sweaters and pants, but not the four layers each that I packed. Shane and I played a masterful game of Tetris packing the car with camping gear, climbing gear, clothes and food, then picked up the kids from school, told them that their school bags had to go on their laps, and headed for Granada, where we needed to make a stop to buy a guide book for the climbing areas, and return an item at a store. Since everything is closed from 2-5:30 PM, we spent a leisurely afternoon having a picnic lunch at a park, wandering the streets of Granada, and stopping for cafe and treats. While buying the guidebook, the salesman in the store recommended a climbing area in Alfacar, which is actually in the Sierra Huetor mountains. We also found out that there is only backcountry camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and requires a permit. We were not quite that prepared, so we found a campsite in a small town near the climbing area and decided it would be the perfect place to start. It wasn't the beautiful campsite tucked away in nature that we were hoping for,but the sound of the air conditioner from the restaurant drowned out the noise of the barking dogs We spent Saturday at a great little crag climbing, and enjoying the views. The kids did great, and Shane and I managed a few fun leads each which was exciting, because it has been a while since we have been climbing outside. Once tired, we drove the mountain road and found the perfect campsite....(for next time). We also found a trailhead for a hike up to a cave which we decided would be a fun Sunday activity. We started the hike early, before the heat of the day. The trail came and went, but for the most part was marked with cairns when not clear. Once we were above the treeline, we could see a huge cave in the mountain. Since the trail wasn't well defined, the kids decided to head straight up a scree section directly to the cave. It got quite steep, and a little technical, but finally we made it within 50 meters of the opening.Between us and the cave reminded me of the castle in Sleeping Beauty, overgrown with thistle bushes. Very carefully, we picked our way through the thorns and suffered a few war wounds in the process, but we didn't come all this way to not get to go into the cave. It was quite an impressive cave, with an amazing view...but it definitely did not have a trail to it, so we began to wonder if we had indeed found the cave on the map. We scrambled down, found the faint path again, and decided to follow it a little further. Sure enough, about 500 meters down the trail, was the actual cave, which was not half as impressive as the one we discovered, so it was all worth the adventure in the end.

We are all very excited to have our first guests at Casa YOLO. My mom and Earl arrived 2 days ago, and Tyler and family are arriving tomorrow. It is going to be a crazy fun and busy 2 weeks! We are looking forward to lots of visiting, playing, and checking out some tourist destinations we have been wanting to see.

Kris

Climbing at Alfacar

Shane Belaying

Snack break 

Cave Exploring

Cave View

Climbing View - Looking down over the town of Alfacar

Cave is visible on rock face half way up

HUGE PINECONES! - Always fighting when we are watching

Always best friends when they don't know we are watching

Campsite Cheers

The outlaws have Landed.....and other news.

Hello all.

It seems like forever since anyone has blogged at the household.  Probably because it has been.  Our Internet connection here has been sketchy at best, non-existent for the most part.  At least that's the excuse I'm going with.

Since it has been at least 12 days, there is a lot to recap.  I will try to keep it brief.

I did end up playing soccer the last 2 Monday nights, and it was a blast.  We play half field, and have had 7 or 8 players a side.  It is shinny soccer, and a good workout.  So far, everyone has been very tolerant of my lack of skills, that or I am still not quite up to speed on my Spanish, they might be yelling at me, I just can't understand them!  Either way, I will probably play every week I can.

Last weekend, we packed up our climbing and camping gear and heading north into the mountains.  We had planned to camp in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, but after talking to someone at a climbing shop. we were directed to an area called the Sierra Huetor's.  We found a nice little climbing area that everyone could manage, and spent Saturday on the ropes.  Sunday, we decided to try a little hiking, and spent the day getting lost and discovering some cool new places.  We hiked to a a couple caves, one with a trail, and one without.  Climbing and hiking were a lot of fun, but I have decided that sleeping on the ground might not be my cup of tea anymore.  After the first night, I bought Brae's thermarest camp pad off him so I could have a little thicker pad to sleep on.  After the second night, I decided that I will carry the extra weight and go buy a thick inflatable air mattress, perhaps even a double!!!

Around home, things have settled into a nice routine.  The kids seem to have school figured out, and it's a nice balance between homework and play.  We also have a stable routine set now, with coffee mornings, quiet time, shopping/meal prep, and kid shuttling, it feels just like home.  We are now taking Spanish classes 2 times a week, so I get to feel like a complete idiot for another hour!

On Wednesday, Ruth and Earl arrived.  I drove into Malaga, and met them at their hotel.  I had to return our rental car, and they had to pick one up, so it worked out well.  It was funny though, as they had rented from a different company than we had, so I asked where the new agency was.  We were told to go to the terminal, which was a wild goose chase, as the rental car kiosk in the terminal are inside the secure arrivals area.  When we landed last month, we had the exact same issue.  UP and down we walked, trying to find where the office was.  Finally, after asking a couple more people, we were send back down to where I had just dropped my car off.  The office was about 20 meters away.

2 more days, and the rest of the family arrives.  It's going to be great, as the kids haven't seen each other since last year.  Can't wait.

Cheers
Shane

Monday morning muse!

Today is Monday, the start of a whole new week.  Last week was pretty active, biking, shopping, diving, etc. I foresee this week to be more of the same.

The friends we have made here put us on to a new app for our phones.  It's called Whatsapp.  If you have it, it's probably the best way to contact us.  Email us for our Spanish numbers.


I have been introduced to the wonderful world of Amazon shopping.  I don't ever have to leave home again.  There is however the slight language barrier using amazon.es, and the fact that our address isn't really the proper address, and when parcels are delivered the driver calls and asks for directions (in Spanish), and the only time they deliver is when the kids are in school (no translator)...... Other than that it works smooth as silk. I have ordered 4 items, and had only 1 successful delivery, the rest are coming mañana y mañana.

This morning, while having coffee with "the gang", I was invited to play in a Monday night football (yes, I mean football as in soccer) league/game.  I was told it was just for fun and exercise.  I hope it's not the Spanish equivalent of getting someone to put there tongue on a pole in winter!!!  I haven't played soccer for 3 decades or more. First game is tonight, I will blog the results.

Other than that, things have settled into a comfortable routine.  Life is great, and we are still happy with our choice to come here.

Adios/ciao

Shane

Tres Semanas

Another week has come and gone and it still feels like a holiday....except for maybe taking the kids to school everyday. Shane and I attended the parent meetings at the school this week hoping a little too optimistically that we might understand something (we did not). Those two hours of feeling completely incompetent as parents was just another motivator to sign ourselves up for Spanish lessons. The civic center in town offers free Spanish lessons for residents. We signed up with some friends and were the only four in the class. The first day was a little overwhelming, as our teacher does not speak any English. We have now been to three classes and five more people have joined our class. I am realizing that it is truly a benefit that she only speaks Spanish, because we are forced to listen, focus, and do some charades, which also helps us laugh, which is important in life, especially when you are feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I continue to be overwhelmed, not only by our lack of Spanish, but also by the beauty of this country and area. The sunset takes my breath away daily, and we have had so much fun exploring the area by boat, foot, and bike.

We have been biking to school about half the time. It is 8 km of mostly downhill, and takes about 30 minutes, a little longer if we hit the panaderia (bakery) for chocolate croissants before school...which has pretty much become standard practice, and earned after the ride. Everyone benefits from bike days; kids get a morning ride to wake them up...and croissants, mom gets a good workout going uphill 8 km on the way home and Shane gets to sleep in, and doesn't suffer from me harassing him for a workout all day long. Then, we typically pick the kids up in the car after school and head home for lunch. It may seem soft driving them for the uphill portion, but the school day is from 9 AM to 2 PM which initially seemed like an incredibly short school day, but there is no lunch break, so the thought of riding straight uphill for 8 KM at 2 PM in the peak heat of the day with 2 starving children is not at all appealing. Today we biked to Nerja which is a beautiful little tourist town about 15 KM away. We packed a lunch, wandered through town, went to an heladoria (ice cream shop), swam at the beach, rode home and made paella for dinner.

Shane has almost mastered paella. I don't want him to think it is perfect yet, or he might stop making it, but I will say it is better that what we ordered in the restaurant. I almost lost my mind when I saw how much seafood and meat he bought to put into the paella...until I saw the price, then asked why he didn't use more. Some prices are quite similar to home, and some are even more like fuel, but there are a few things that are so cheap, that I can't help indulging. The cheapest things to date are cheese, wine, beer, meat, and seafood/shellfish. Perhaps it is a good thing we live on top of a mountain, otherwise it could be a very fattening year.

We have also been out paddling a few days each week. Last week, Shane dropped me off at our beach, and I paddled on my SUP to La Herradura to meet the kids after school which took about 45 minutes. This weekend,we spent a day at the beach and took the kayak and SUP over to some cliffs where we found some great climbing and cliff jumping locations. We also enjoyed just hanging out in the boats and watching the fish frenzies. They swim in massive schools and feed at the surface with their heads just breaking the surface. From far away, it looks like wind rippling the surface, but when you get up close, you realize it is massive schools of fish feeding at the surface. We have also discovered some really cool caves, and private secluded beaches from the boats.There are other boaters which can find these places, but it definitely separates you from the masses of car access beach goers.

Friday night we joined a group of friends for tapas at a restaurant just off the central plaza in town. It was wonderful because the group of kids could run off and play all evening, periodically returning to check in and grab a quick bite or drink. This is a regular event for this group, so it was nice to relax, visit, and not worry about the kids. It was close to 11 PM before we decided it was time to head home. We found Jaedyn easily at the plaza with some friends, but circled the area for well over an hour for Brae, gradually expanding our radius and trying to calm my increasing anxiety. We were fairly certain he was with a friends 13 year old, but could not locate either of them. Finally we found them on the beach searching for a sock he had lost. He didn't want to leave the beach without finding his sock, which I suppose was somewhat responsible of him, but I was so worried by the time we found him, I couldn't care less about him losing a sock!

Shane and I also went diving for the first time this week. I think we will try to make it out at least once a week. There are a number of dive locations that leave from town. Shane and I were going to try a dive with each of the various companies around town and decide which we liked best, but after our first dive, the owner offered us an ice cold beer, and Shane bought a package. I was a little more sold on the fact that the dive shop is across the street from where we park to drop the kids off for school, and leaves 30 minutes after drop off, but I won't lie, the ice cold beer tasted pretty good. After our dive, we decided to walk across the street and have a cervesa on the beach while we filled out our dive logs. I thought it would be on the expensive side, because it is on the beach, but it was the cheapest beer we have had in a restaurant and they brought us pulpo (octopus ) for tapas for free. We also watched them unload fresh fish out of a bucket for the BBQ. SOLD!

Both Shane and I are having difficulty being tenants. It is difficult going from being homeowners, and landlords to being tenants. I am fairly certain that our landlord will benefit from this struggle. Shane has already been to the hardware store a number of times in an attempt to set up a solar heated pump system to heat our pool. It is still quite pleasant now, but the temperature has already dropped 4-5 degrees since arriving here 3 weeks ago. We have also enjoyed gardening, reorganizing, cleaning, and planning "projects" for the winter...if we ever get bored.

I am also having a great deal of difficulty walking by real estate offices without "looking" at the postings in the windows.....we all have to plan for retirement right?